Serial Killer Summer (A 3-Day Novel)

Chapter Three

There was a regimen to camp. Or, there was supposed to be. A lot of people loved summers at camp for the freedom of it, but it was freedom within a framework, one that didn't change.

The bell rang at seven in the morning, and that meant out of bed and down to the water—girls to Back Bay, boys to Big Bay—for a quick morning swim to get clean for the day. Staff were permitted showers of course, though campers were not, but morning swim was a ritual we continued through to our final summers.

The bell rang again at seven-thirty, announcing breakfast at seven forty-five.

There were morning activities, all regulated by the sound of bells ringing. Then lunch and more activities and bells in the afternoon. Finally dinner and evening activities and even more bells until lights out at ten-thirty.

It was all to be depended upon.

It never mattered what was happening at home, I counted on camp to provide structure for at least two weeks of my life, and later, for the entire summer.

My parents divorced when I was 10, but I still had camp.

My big sister became seriously ill when I was 14. I did not miss attending camp. That was the year I started going for the both of us.

The family moved so my sister would be closer to the hospital when I was 15. I became a counsellor-in-training that year, and knew that I would stay as long as they let me.

My sister died when I was 16, but I still spent the summer at camp, my first full summer there as a junior counsellor, a paid position in my favourite place on earth.

Camp was my bell, a yearly reset for my life. It told me where to go and when.

A serial killer terrorized my city for nine months.

At least I had camp.

So when the regimen was thrown off on day one, I was thrown off.

It was not just the new cook and Lindsey's personal troubles.

Courtney was also in a different place than I expected.

For dinner on that first night, when Win served up a hearty chili that Devon kept joking possibly contained our old cook. The joke was tasteless, unlike the chili, but he persisted until Mark heard it and told him in no uncertain terms to can it.

After dinner, Courtney and I ended up alone in the girls' washroom, cleaning up and getting ready for campfire.

"So, what's going on with you and Sam?" I asked, patting my face dry.

"Why, I don't know what you mean!" she exclaimed, but her wicked grin gave her away and she broke down. "He wrote to me over the off-season. It was sweet. He encouraged me to apply for a Waterfront job. I guess he knew Perry was moving on and there would be an opening. So in the fall and winter, I upped my qualification levels in swimming and life-guarding, and got the job!"

Something like jealousy stabbed at me that they had communicated through the fall and winter and she and I had not, though it was rare for us to do so.

I thought of her new look, the untamed curls that she usually tried to straighten or smooth into braids, the T-shirt over a bikini top look that Marcy had perfected summers before. She was already starting to look like one of them.

"I just have so many plans for this summer," Courtney burst out. "I really feel like this my year. I mean, our year," she corrected herself, seeing my face in the mirror. She was apply a glossy pink balm to her lips.

My heart lurched happily. "Oh, I know! There is so much I want to do. This is going to be the best summer ever!"

"Exactly," she agreed. "There's me and Sam. I think. I hope, anyway. And hey, maybe you and Devon, huh? Maybe you guys can finally get it going."